It is nice that the Salt Lake area provides upward mobility. However, another
important factor is improvement in overall standard of living. Someone making
it from the bottom 5th to the top 5th is part of the of the American dream. But
it may mean that one or more people have had a bad time and moved down. Another
factor is that the standard of living of the bottom 5th moves up as a whole to
have jwhat the second 5th had a few years ago. That is why income disparity is
a weak argument. If we become more productive and in 10 years the
"poor" have what the middle class have today that is a good thing, even
if the rich are even richer. You can reduce income inequality simply by taking
away from the rich, but noone is better off.

Impressive! SLC should be leading the way for true conservatism in politics.
and yet we see 'get along and go along'. The Old Gaurd, and we know
who they are, should reconcille with the New Gaurdians of our constitution, so
the rest of our great country could experience upward mobility.

I would encourage anyone who wants more details than this article gives, on the
whys and wherefores, to click the link to the study's summary. One thing I
don't see there is an analysis of the migration they hint at. The adult
outcomes they measure are based on where that adult lived at age 16, not where
they lived at the time of income measurement, at age 30, where the analysis
picks them up again.

Another factor, again not fully analyzed, finds
that areas with the highest percentage of whites have an advantage over those
with lower percentages.

Also, note that their criteria are very
focused. They're primarily looking from the middle (median income) to the
top. They're not really measuring from the bottom up. In terms of setting
poverty policy, it might be useful to measure results from the lowest quintile
to the median. Or, are we just abandoning poor people to be repeated
generations of poor?

Free, high-quality public educations were the
original engine of American upward mobility. Let's never lose sight of
that.

I went to their website, looked at the top 5 areas for social mobility, at least
according to the study: they are in order: Salt Lake City, San Jose, San
Francisco, Seattle, and San Diego. As to the odds of a kid migrating from the
bottom fifth to the top fifth, the top of this group is separated from the
bottom by a mere 1.1%.

This a mixed bag of towns. According to the
study these outcomes are loosely related to public finance, but other factors
are at work. I think SLC ranks high because of a world class university (that
be U of U), and the social capital internal to the LDS community. Note also,
however, that this premier group are a very mixed bag as to dominant ideology -
Salt Lake (hyper conservative ?) and Seattle (hyper leftist?).

I agree with RBB. The money funded to certain areas of our country to target
the poor by Mr. Obama supports the idea that giving money to politicians to
distribute to the poor works to help the poor. What? Those identified areas, if
looked at closely, are really targeted for campaign efforts in 2014.

I think people are confusing hyper conservative Utah with Salt Lake City. Salt
Lake City is represented by Democrats. I not saying that's a bad thing
either. When you look at the things the city has to offer from the University of
Utah to its diverse neighborhoods you can see that it has more in common with
Madison, WI or even Seattle, WA then it does with some of its Utah neighbors
like Bountiful or Provo. Yes, the LDS church is big in Salt Lake City but how
many LDS people have fled the city to live in Sandy or Herriman, or Davis,
Washington, or Utah County. Then there is the LGBT community in Salt Lake with
many LDS people even supporting them as shown at the last two Gay Pride parades.
Personally I think Salt Lake it number one in upward mobility because it is the
liberal enclave for Utah not because it's the hyper conservative center.

Maybe SLC is highly rated in terms of upward mobility because people move from
poorer parts of Utah to the big city where incomes are higher. Also, the is a
strong culture of the importance of academics and a recent influx of high-paying
jobs as companies have moved out of expensive areas in California.